


The Silence

by DragonLdy



Category: Angel The Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angel Bashing, Deaf, Disability, F/F, F/M, M/M, Riley Bashing, The Powers That Be - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-18 09:00:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14209704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonLdy/pseuds/DragonLdy
Summary: Original posted on Elysian Fields but I've done a bit of a revamp on it.Buffy is given CPR but to maintain balance she is returned deaf, how do the people around her react to te change? How do they adapt and help her to adapt to the sudden language barrier that exists between them?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Comments made with # at the beginning and end are signed conversations, that are sometimes also spoken aloud it usually says it in the text but I want the reader to understand the difference between what is said and what Buffy can understand.

The Master dropped her into the puddle like she was so much discarded rubbish and walked out of his once inescapably oppressive prison, free for the first time in over sixty years because he had killed and drank from the Slayer. Supposedly the doom of vampire kind, she had been his saviour and the pain that knowledge had caused her in her final moments had tasted all the more exquisite on his tongue.  
   
Buffy's soul left her discarded body where he had dropped her and she found herself floating far above and away from the cares of the earthly realm and free of all its pain. She would describe the place she found herself in as heavenly because it was as if all the cosmos was laid out before her and she could see all the Suns and moons and planets of the universe before her as they moved in their preordained paths which she could see as they arched above her and into the cosmos. The moons went round the planets while the planets went round the Suns; all of them expanding and moving away from the place where they had first formed as if the creator of the universe had taken sparkly colorful dust and blew it out across the infinite space and she could see it all; where it began and where it would eventually end but never end continuing on into eternity. Everything had a path and followed that path; the language that would describe how beautiful and awe inspiring it was, to describe how peaceful she felt watching it made her feel had not yet been created.  
   
She was in the cosmos and part of the cosmos as she rose from a pool, not the pool he had dropped her in but a diffferent pool that held all the waters of creation and life itself. Sitting on the ground that was not ground and yet solid next to the pool Buffy had risen from was a woman with grey hair, there were other women standing around her; all slayers ranging from the very old to the very young but all beautiful in their own way and though their mouths didn't move Buffy felt as if she could nearly hear them speaking to her though she had no idea what they were trying to tell her.  
   
The old woman with white-grey hair embraced her and called her daughter and Buffy knew it was true, this was her Mother, she was the all Mother. She asked Buffy if she would like to go back or stay with her, stay with her and she would be safe with all of her sisters. She would be loved and she would be finished but her friends would be left alone. They were weak in their own ways and would be dead long ago if not for her and they would go down dark paths without her as their guiding light. Buffy wept in The All Mother's arms and was sorely tempted to stay but knew she had to refuse.  
   
"They need me Mother," She said sadly, "I had barely begun to be who I am or do what I can and its all been taken from me, I feel if I had another chance I could do great things, I can't leave my other Mother all alone." Buffy tried to explain.  
   
"I understand my daughter and I'll help you how I can to see people for what they are and save you from making the mistakes so many of your sisters have and mistakes I have seen you making in a future which will now never be." Buffy looked around at her sisters who wept for her loss, losing her hurt them as much as it would hurt her other family. Then she felt a great warmth in her ears as The All Mother touched them and she woke up in the Master's cavern. Her first thought once she got over waking up was how gross it was to be in a wet white and now see through dress with Xander practically on top of her. She still didn't like being too near him in any sort of comprimising position since he tried to rape her during the hyena thing. She got up and fetched an axe and told Angel and him to go with her, with a determination she had never felt before Buffy The Vampire Slayer hunted her prey, she was the Slayer; more ready to embrace that fact than she had ever been before and all supernatural monsters were her prey.  
   
She found The Master on the roof of the school, somehow she had been able to track him, to follow the signature of his demon, the Master looked flummoxed at her return and he couldn't understand why the thrall didn't work on her but she did. Even as she was pushing him through the window and onto the wooden post that would be his doom he was protesting and arguing "You cannot be alive, it was written! I killed you!" As if a verbal argument could discredit the proof of his own eyes as he felt her fists and weapon hit him and beat him back into the glass window. She had been lucky that he had landed on a handy piece of wood that impaled him as he fell and the Master's thousand year reign was finally brought to an end as the creatures he had raised from the abyss of the hell dimension were forced back to it with his final death.  
   
She knew why the thrall hadn't worked; ever since she woke up panting in the cave, ever since she had been brought back Buffy had heard only the silence. The Master's hypnotic words fell on deaf ears, he crashed through the window onto the stake, the old ones retreated to their own dimension and Buffy heard none of it, nothing but the silence. She rejoined her friends in the library to their words of congratulations and back slapping but Buffy heard none of it and simply said aloud for all to hear that she was tired and wanted to go home. When she got home she allowed herself to break down and her Mother brought her to the emergency room, despite her abject fear of hospitals Buffy spent most of the following summer seeing specialists or getting results but they were always the same. The doctors thought it was some sort of infection from the dirty water but they could never find a conclusive cause but they did give a diagnosis; complete, irreversible hearing loss.  
   
September came around too quickly and too slowly as most summer holidays do, Buffy had had to change one of her elective subjects because of her condition; no point learning French if you can't hear it and therefore learn to pronounce it properly, she had always hated French and was delighted to have an excuse to give it up! se told people while inside she felt herself die a little. She had done a few art classes over the summer and was feeling better about it, she also had a tutor who had opened her mind to so many things and not just Sign Language which she was proving to be pretty great at. The summer months had been a period of adjustment to all of her friends, Willow had tried to learn Sign Language along side Buffy to make things easier and Jenny Calender had showed her all of these computer programs and helped her to install all of these gadgets that helped her with things like answering the phone; the words people spoke turned into phonetic text on her end and the doorbell, if someone rang it then all the lights in the house blinked as well as the doorbell going off. Angel took over her patrols and told her she should go home and rest whenever he saw her which at first she found sweet; he had never offered to cover her patrols before and she would enjoy getting her homework done and going to bed early once in a while when school started but during the summer she started to find it a bit pointless as she had plenty of time and energy to patrol. At first she had found it sweet, the second week she had found it annoying and by the third week it was just condescending. To avoid conflict she started sneaking out and avoided him while she patrolled the cemeteries; if he didn't see her he might not know she was there and in LA he couldn't control her at all so she took out a few small nests whenever she stayed with her Dad or visited to see yet another specialist. Another change to her relationship with Angel was she used to find his silent presence kind of reassuring before because he would listen to her when she talked but now that she couldn't hear herself she found talking strange; as if she was speaking under water. But now she just found his silence infuriating, everything was silent, everyone was silent; couldn't he atleast try to make her feel less alone in the sea of silence she was in?  
   
It came to a head when the Master's minions dug up his bones and planned to resurrect him. It really wasn't her fault, she was the Slayer. It wasn't just a title it was instinct, Angel and the gang gathered together to take the anointed one and his followers down once and for all and Angel insisted he go first, Buffy didn't argue as the room was dark and she didn't fully catch what he and everyone was saying she had good night vision when it came to fighting opponents but lip reading requires more light and focus and she was too filled with adrenaline to focus on one small things her body hummed with the thrill of a promised battle. The vampire zealots (quite rightly in her opinion) saw her as the greatest threat and focused their attack on her, she felt alive and motivated, this was what she was meant to do, this was her purpose and when she was in a fight like this, really fighting in a kill or be killed situation she knew it might seem wrong but it's when she felt at her most alive. Naffir said that was natural and nothing to be ashamed of; if the slayer didn't enjoy slaying then she wouldn't do it, from an evolutionary stand point it just made sense like how eating made people feel good and they felt thirsty when they were dehydrated but Buffy always felt it was something shameful and would never talk to any of the others about it. She was really getting into the fight, dusting left and right when Angel, for some reason she could not understand jumped in front of her to take out some of her attackers. It was dark and he was wearing black (of course) lik the vampires they were fighting and she hadn't expected him to jump in front of her like that, he was supposed to be fighting at the other end of the cave but n the confusion she accidentally staked him. Not in the heart, she missed, but in his back, she said sorry and even though she couldn't hear it it was hurtful how  much he had shouted at her.  
   
   
He said it was proof that she couldn't go into battle anymore and Giles agreed with him. They all ganged up on her and talked to her like she was a misbehaving child and Buffy had to bight her cheek hard not to cry. What made it all the harder was Giles, he had barely trained her all summer and whenever she went to his house all she could smell was scotch and she saw the empty bottles in his bin. She did try to cheer him up and get him out of his funk but she only had so much cheerfulness inside her, she needed to be positive right now because if she let herself get upset then she would curl up in a ball and cry until she couldn't stop. She hoped he would get better when they got back to school and he was busy with his library again. But Buffy only had a limited amount of hop in her and being shouted at and told off like she was a misbehaving child had not helped. Afterwards Giles drove her home in silence, everything was silent but to more noticeable when someone should be talking but they're not as she opened the door to the car to get out he caught her arm so she would turn to face him.

"We all just want you to be safe Buffy." He said slowly with his finger pointing to his lips so she could see them. Buffy said nothing but took her bag and walked the five minutes to her house where with a practiced ease she climbed through her bedroom window and lay down on the bed. Texting was still kind of new and only a few people with phones did it but she figured it as made for people like her so lying on the bed she took out her phone and messaged Naffir, a text cost as much as one minute of a phone call so she tried to get as much down as she could.

*I've had a really shirty (auto correct sucks) night. Tearooms?*

Two minutes later she got a message back from him.

*You at your house? I'll be over to pick you up in 20mins? Those darn shirts, we should throw out the whole wardrobe.* Buffy smiled a little at the joke and got up to get ready; a girl did not wear slaying clothes to the tearooms.  
   
 True to his word Naffir pulled up in his yellow car outside the house nearly twenty minutes later to pick her up, she smiled at him as she got in the car.

#Wanna tell me what happened?# He signed to her.

#No, not yet, I need to have some fun first before I revisit the crap that happened today.# Naffir nodded understandingly as they took off.

The Tearooms were in the local municipal dump, it hadn't been a dump when the tearooms started but Lady Vi said it was actually good for business that the hidden pocket dimension's entrance was in a place so avoided by the human population of Sunnydale. Lady Vi was a very unusual vampire but as Buffy had had it pointed out to her the only vampires she had ever known were trying to actively kill her so she had never really gotten to know any of them in a social setting. Lady Vi was an aristocrat, every pose and gesture of her hands showed she was of the upper classes. She was turned in Russia over eighty years ago when the Bolshevists started killing her family, Buffy had never learnt much about Russia or the Tzars in history class; they were just people who lived and died decades ago to her. Lady Vi's Grandfather had been a Tzar and the last Romonavs had been her cousins and even though she was a vampire now you could still see the pain written across her face when she talked about them; not as distant figures in history but as loved ones she still remembered and missed. Evidence of them and Lady Vi's royal lineage decorated many of the walls of the tearooms in photographs and paintings. 

She had been in her nineties when her son, his wife and three of their children had been blown up in a carriage by people who claimed it was justice and fair. It was three years later when the tzar and Tzarina and all of their children were taken into custody, she had not been foolish enough to think it could end in any way but with their deaths so she had done the unthinkable; she had gone to a vampire and asked to be turned. Usually people lost a lot of who they had previously been when they were turned but Lady Vi as a strong personality. A personality formed from a strong lineage tracing all the way back to Alexandra the Great. No demon would ever control her. 

She had fought to protect her territory and her remaining children and grandchildren but the Bolshevists proved to be more powerful and more determined so the newly made vampire had smuggled as much of her family out of the country as she could before leaving herself. She got a lot of sympathy from Heinrich Nest who himself was member of a royal line, he saw the rise of Socialism and the fall of the monarchy as a sign that the world was truly ready for The Old Ones to return but Lady Vi was too old to join his pseudo religious cult or to actively participate in his rise to power so he had made her the Russian Tearooms; a place she could design to look like the drawing room in her old home and live safely away from the dangers of the world and preserve a small place; an oasis for all the older vampires and demons in this ever changing and turbulent world. There were spells on the property that prevented any and all violence; within its walls Lady Vi was queen and her word was law Buffy considered herself very lucky to be the first Slayer ever welcomed into this safe haven where beings who would normally be her enemies sat drinking teas and cocktails and enjoying pleasant conversation.

As Naffir walked in with her he signed a few words to her about what she would like to drink, she usually drank Diet Coke but that didn't fit in the tearooms somehow so she asked for this special herbal tea that The Tearooms specialized in. They sat together at one of the tables that was drenched in doilies and she started to sign to him what had happened.

#I only let Angel lead the attack because he seemed to know what he was doing, he and Giles have been having lots of secret talks without me, I know because when I walk in on them they stop talking and put away what they've been looking at. I hate it when he takes point, it feels wrong to follow instead of lead and I don't know if that's because I'm the Slayer or if that's because I'm me. The whole fight was...brilliant, exhilarating I felt really alive, you know?# Naffir nodded in understanding as he prepared the tea, at home tea was in a bag in a mug; add hot water and stir but there was this whole ceremony to making tea with leaves and straining it here which, she begrudgingly admitted, made it taste better. #So I'm fighting, Willow and Xander behind me; I'm protecting them and taking on three and four vamps at a time and then suddenly one of them is pushed out of the way but my stake was already moving and I accidentally stabbed Angel in the back.#

#Did you kill him?# 

#No I missed the heart, thank God.# Naffir snorted, he was not a fan of Angel's e said Angelus was famous in the demon world for being a bastard, not just being evil, lots of vampires were evil but he was on a whole other sadistic level that didn't bare thinking about. Most vampires kill for food and they do enjoy it the same way Buffy enjoyed slaying but as Naffir pointed out to her once she would never rape children in front of their vampire parents just to enjoy their pain like Angels would, he had even given her this diary written by a vampire hunter from the late seventeen hundreds that detailed Angelus's horrific crimes including how he had turned a three old girl and abandoned her so her her Father Holtz would have to kill her. It was a far cry from the tortured soul persona Angel had always shown Buffy and made her uncomfortable around him to see the words written down by one of his victims like that. No one knew what happened to Holtz; he was probably killed by Angelus but he was a victim,, as much as his family that had been raped, tortured and slaughtered by the Scourge of Europe. 

#Thats a pity, the world would be a better place without him.# Naffir said simply as he passed her her cup and took his own.

#No he's trying to make the world better, he's trying to redeem himself-#

#He can't, he did too many horrible things, helping one girl, guarding one Hellmouth will not undo a century of evil like his.# Buffy opened her mouth to argue before stepping herself. Naffir was an 8,000 year old Djinn, (he did not grant wishes) and while that might give him a lot more knowledge and experience of the world it did not make him infallible. Besides they had had that discussion before and Buffy found it too depressing and hopeless to have again. 

#Well anyway, he shouted at me and everyone was looking at me like I had done something majorly wrong and the he broke the Master's bones to dust and Giles brought me home.#

#Is Giles still drinking?# Buffy bit her lip and sighed.

#Yes, his morning cup of coffee this morning at school didn't have a lot of coffee in it.# A tendril of smoke escaped Naffir's much as he sighed.

#Was this early in the morning?# Buffy looked away shamefacedly.

#It was before my classes started at 9.# Naffir put a comforting arm around the young girl and let her wipe away a few tears without comment.

#It will get better, I promise you and I've been around for the rise and fall of empires so believe me when I say I know what I'm talking about.# Buffy nodded and wiped her nose, Naffir was such an amazing Sign Language tutor and. Brilliant friend.

#They all blamed my deafness for my staking Angel but I don't think that's fair, if he did shout anything in warning then he should have known I couldn't hear it and besides he has barely spent any time with me these last three months, time was I could tell exactly what he was doing and exactly where he was in a room because of my Slayer senses but now? I barely recognized his 'signature' as being different from the twenty other a-u-r-e-l-i-a-n-s around him.# (American Sign Language had its limitations so she often had to spell out strange words in a conversation and then for the rest of the conversation they would use a single gesture for that word, like with Aurelian's it would be the letter 'A'.)

#That's not the only thing that's bothering me,# she admitted after a while and told Naffir the rest, this had been her first week back in school and it had been torture and it wasn't even Friday yet. He nodded in understanding and the two talked for a while longer before he drove her home, he always insisted on seeing her home safely which was a novel idea to her as Giles had sent her out alone every night since she had come to Sunnydale and Angel although he may have followed her home to keep her safe had rarely allowed her to be aware of his presence.

******

Buffy found Xander's conversation hard to follow as he was always making quips with his head bowed; comments which weren't always easy to follow so she missed a lot of the jokes and felt more isolated than ever but she plastered on a smile and gave a fake laugh and it was all fine. It was fine, really she was fine she kept telling herself and everyone else as she plastered on a fake smile until she was able to get home, lock herself in her room and curl into a ball and cry her eyes out.  
   
She hated how things changed in group settings, when there were more than two people Buffy couldn't read all the lips or figure out who was talking immediately after the last person stopped. School was hard, a lot of the teachers tried too hard to face her and talk slowly which made her feel like everyone was staring at her when all she wanted was to disappear other teachers forgot halfway through the class and she missed most of what they were saying. Thankfully she wasn't just depending on her new lip reading skills, she had a tape recorder that recorded the classes and later she could hook it up to her computer ant the lesson would appear on the screen as phonetic text, it took longer, it was full of spelling errors and she often went to classes and had no idea what they had been about until she went home and went over the tapes hours later but what else could she do? 

They went to The Bronze that Friday to celebrate the first week of school being over. Buffy felt relieved but nervous, she had been to the Bronze during the summer but that had been before; before that evil, inconsiderate troll of a principal made a school announcement that everyone heard about the deaf student. Students died in Sunnydale all the time, less since she had moved there but still a lot, Buffy was unique in that she now had a disability. She hated the word disability even though it appeared on a lot of forms and things that she had to sign, disabled implied she couldn't do anything, was unable. She wasn't unable to do anything, she was capable, in one of her lip reading courses she had taken over the summer she had 'heard' a lot of people talk about how they were trying to change the term to 'differently abled'. She liked that description better; Buffy the girl who is differently abled rather than Buffy the disabled girl. You don't need magic or a Hellmouth for words to have power.

Maybe that's why Buffy had dressed like she had, the dress was slutty and sexy like nothing she had ever worn and she spent a lot of time making doing her make up so she looked sultry and sexy. It was childish and immature she knew but she just needed all the pittying looks she had gotten all week since that insensitive troll had talked about her on the intercom for the whole school except her to hear to change. She did not want to be pitied, for her that was worse than being beaten or killed. She danced close to the speakers so she could feel the rhythm of the music through the soles of her feet, she knew it was too loud their for most people to join her but Xander had noticed this habit of her's over the summer and put in some earplugs so he could dance with her there too. Willow looked on in sadness as Buffy sexy danced with the boy she loved and tried not to cry but Buffy was unaware; when she was dancing she was in her own world and was above all the cares of those around her. 'Unless they were vampires' She thought as she opened her eyes at the feel of vampire tinglies up her neck, Angel was watching her, scowling at her from the stairway, she shrugged him off and continued to dance.

Later she changed from her too short dress and into some sweat pants and a shirt for patrolling in the Bronze toilets and ten headed out to patrol the cemeteries feeling more like her old self than she had in a while. Her mood instantly darkened when she saw the brooding vampire waiting for her outside the bronze, he was always lurking always brooding; darkening every room by his mere presence, before she had thought it her duty to cheer him up and make him come out of his shell a bit but now she had her own problems, besides he was 240 years old, he shouldn't need a sixteen year old to cheer him up all the time. 

"We need to talk."He scowled at her. Buffy took a deep calming breath and forced herself to stand still.

"Alright Angel, we can talk but you're going to have to come out of the shadows, my lip reading is good but not so good I can do it in the dark." Angel stepped closer, too close in her opinion and she took a half step back to see his face better. "What was tonight about? Was that little show in their for my benefit?" Buffy frowned in confusion.

#"What do you mean?"# Her sign language teacher had told her to sign even when she was talking because it would help her to remember all of the new words she had learned so she signed at him and spoke. It also had the benefit of reminding people of her limitations during a conversation which several people forgot.

"You and Xander! You're leading the boy on, you shouldn't dress and act like a harlot with him!" Buffy's hand was out and slapping his cheek before she had a chance to think about it. Angelus, the demon was always there just under the surface and watching Buffy dance all night had driven him crazy like a caged animal, this sudden unexpected bit of violence brought him to the fore and he roared at the young girl with his yellow eyes and fangs. Buffy waited until Angel had himself under control again before she spoke. 

#"You are not my Father or my Watcher that you can tell me how to behave or dress, this is the nineties and women have the right to own their bodies without being made to feel guilty about it by misogynistic old men like you!" She screamed at him before storming out of the alley. She would do her duty and patrol and if he came anywhere near her again tonight then she would have another 'accident with her stake.'

Angel watched her leave with a hand on his slapped cheek and a look of pure disbelief on his face. Not her 'Father' or her 'Watcher', well of course he wasn't either of those he was her boyfriend, wasn't he? Had he failed to make his intentions clear somehow? They had kissed, he had full access to her house, he fought by her side in many battles, surely she understood that he had romantic intentions for her. Was this because he had not joined in the dancing she was doing on the dance floor for the past three hours? Had she wanted him to join her? The few times she had looked up at him she had seemed content if not challenging with her gaze, had it been a test of some sort? It was true they hadn't spent a lot of time together since the Master's Lair but was that enough to erase the memory of all their sweet kisses together from her memory? Maybe it was, maybe he had been too aloof and standoffish but he only did that to keep her safe, she was young, still so young and in need of guidance which he often tried to give her so maybe that was why she compared him to a father or a watcher but now that he knew he had been doing it wrong he would change his approach. She needed him as he needed her and they belonged together he knew so he would just try harder to make her see they belonged together.

That night Buffy found a grave that had not been disturbed by demons or vampires but plain old fashioned grave robbers and life on the hell mouth moved forward.

It was unpleasant to say the least to find the Frankenstein's bride made up of all of the body parts of the dead girls and seeing Cordelia tied up (again) about to be cut up (again) was like a scene in a bad horror flick, she would have laughed if the whole thing wasn't so sad. Daryl and the other boy got the drop on her because she didn't hear them coming at her from behind but she had her Slayer reflexes and she had been getting training from Naffir who knew more about fighting styles than at living human possibly could and she beat the resurrected footballer back with relative ease.  
   
As they were leaving the house of horrors, now on fire, Buffy turned to see Angel and the others approaching but instead of congratulations and smiles of relief Angel said..  
   
"What were you thinking! You could have been hurt, I'm supposed to protect you but I couldn't get in because of that damn invite rule!" He had grabbed her arm and was now holding it to force her to look at him and read his lips, she could count on one hand the number of times he had spoken to her in the last month and even then it had mostly been short statements like "How are you" which he had made an effort to learn the sign language for in the beginning but stopped using as he saw her lip reading get better. Buffy yanked her arm out of his iron tight grip and shoved him to the floor.  
   
She glared at him furiously as her unheard voice said the words she wanted to say. #"How dare you! How dare you?! How dare you? I am the Slayer, I am not some damsel in distress who waits around to be rescued or for people to get off their lazy asses and help me with my calling, mine! Cordelia was in danger, I did my best to save her and yeah I nearly got hurt but I've nearly gotten hurt loads of times since I was Called, it has nothing to do with me being deaf and I find it offensive that you would treat me so differently just because I can't hear anymore."#  
   
"But you are different! You're more vulnerable-"  
   
#"I've always been vulnerable, I'm not superman with skin made of steel. Fuck you Angel if you can't see that."# And she stormed away, he shouted after her but of course she didn't hear him, it was so demoralizing to be talked to like that after all the hard work she had put in, after all the months of training to hone her Slayer senses into telling her when danger was near so she wouldn't be relying on sound anymore. This had been her first big win, no one had helped her like with the Master, she had gone in alone, saved the hostage and destroyed the monster, she had been on a high feeling like her old self again and then that bastard came along. The next day she went to Jenny and she asked her to talk to Giles about it, Angel didn't suck the blood out of people but he sure sucked the joy out of a room and Buffy just didn't have any joy left over to give him anymore, everything was different. Giles would have argued the point with her but Jenny was more understanding and would take Buffy's side she knew. There had been a bit of flirtation between Jenny and Giles towards the end of last year but her injury had made Giles into a bit of a drinker and as far as she knew he had not pursued any relationship with her but he would listen to her and she wold fight for Buffy's sake. Buffy knew her limitations even before going deaf trying to explain herself verbally had not been one of her strong suits, fighting demons no problem, arguing with words, terrible at it.  
   
   
Then one night at the Bronze Buffy was madly trying to learn the names of the pre-Raphaelites and their contribution to modern painting, the noise of the bronze didn't disturb her from reading but the people did, the test wasn't until Friday but Buffy had started studying earlier for tests because she never knew which disaster was going to interrupt her study sessions. Neither Xander nor Willow had seemed to get that and had dragged her out practically kicking and screaming, it was ok for them, they didn't have two hours of training four times a week plus three-four hours of patrol every night. She sometimes wondered if they even cared how hard it was for her. Putting away the book she gave in to Xander's pestering and went to dance with the two of them, she danced and moved, trying to find her inner rhythm, nights like these she tried desperately to remember other songs she had heard; good ones and bad ones, she should have listened to more music, should have appreciated more while she could but c'est la vie. All of a sudden Xander grabbed her and pulled her to the alley where a vamp was on a woman. Instantly Buffy was on him and thrust her stake home but her senses picked up another vampire's signature and she turned around to face the most beautiful man she had ever seen and her world changed.  
   
#"Nice one, love."#  
   
*********  
   
As they searched for his name in the library the next day Buffy was doing a sketch of him on a small sketch pad she had brought with her. The Big Bad had learned enough sign language that he could threaten her properly, she didn't know why that made her happy but it did. She felt a breeze and looked up to see the library doors closing, she looked around questioningly and Willow told her Angel had come in and given her the unsettling and unhelpful message about Spike being blood thirsty and determined but as Buffy hadn't looked up she had missed his dramatic entrance and exit. She sighed, this life was not what she had expected. She always felt like she was watching a movie with no sound that everyone else was caught up on but that she was ten minutes behind in, she needed to be better for the Feast of St Vigious.  
   
 #"Giles, I didn't even realize he was here, I need to be ready for Saturday, he said that's when he'll kill me."#

Parent Teacher Night was a roaring success from Buffy's point of view, Buffy had already known and a few people had noticed and told her that sometimes Principal Snyder walked up behind Buffy and clapped his hands or did other things to try and prove she wasn't deaf but she never had any real evidence to give her mother about it and her mother had pooh poohed the notion that a member of the faculty would be so insensitive to her condition. Until she met him in person. Then she believed each and every accusation Buffy had layed against the little toad so from Buffy's point of view the night was already a huge success.  
   
What made the vampire attack on the school really special for Buffy was that it gave her a chance to really shine, no one could say she was weak or a liability now, she took out all the vampires in the school with no help from anybody and without getting hurt, at one stage Sheila had sneaked up behind her but all Buffy's senses had told her was 'vampire!' and she swung around stake on target before she even recognized the girl. Then she was up against him, he was holding a metal pole but he dropped it so he could sign to her.  
   
#'Hello cutie.'# His hands said and she hadn't known that sign language could be sexy before and hated herself for the blush she felt rising on her face.  
   
#"How did you know I was deaf?'# She silently signed back, testing him, plenty of people learnt short simple phrases so they could seem clever and supportive but few learnt more.  
   
#'You've been going to that tea house; the one that's neutral ground and all sorts of demons meet there, did you think no one knew?'# He then gave a little shrug and added #"Plus one of my minions, Dalton says he's been teaching you chess."# Buffy's face immediately changed from a hard scowl to something softer.

#"Oh you know Dalton? He's sweet isn't he? Did he teach you to sign?" she signed back as they circled each other, he really was hot. 

#"No, I learnt a bit on my own but I've met your pet Djinn, did he tell you?#"  
   
"#He's not my pet, he's my sign language tutor."# He laughed at that.  
   
#"Wow talk about adapt to survive, I can't believe he has such a-"# Spike tried to find a word to describe the Djinn's profession.

#"Normal job?"#

"#Yeah! I thought it was a joke when I first heard.# He laughed, Buffy wondered what his laugh would sound like around his fangs, it looked like he was really laughing, not maniacal laughter likes he had ten heard from vampires but real laughter.

"I know! I'd been to like three lessons before he found out I was the Slayer and showed me wha he was. Only on the Hellmouth, huh?"#

"Oh kitten, only on the hellmouth!" Then they were fighting, it was ferocious and vicious and put holes in the walls, he didn't hold back and he was skilled and had obviously had a lot of formal training in a lot of styles. By the end he had her on the floor and he was going for her neck, she bared the part that had been bitten by the master as she tried to position her legs so she could kick him away when he bent down, she was down but she wasn't finished and she felt his fangs a whisper away before he fell on top of her and to the side with an unexpected jolt.  
   
"You brought your mother with you!" He accused as he rubbed the back of his head, too dazed to sign at her and made a hasty retreat, then Buffy looked up and saw her mother with the axe and smiled as she slowly stood and hugged her.  
   
*********  
   
So St. Vigious turned out to be a red herring and school was closed Friday because of all the deaths so she didn't even get to sit her art test. Life went back to what passed as normal and Buffy spent a little more time with Giles as he started training her again. She also spent time with her tutor Naffir, he was a Djinn as Spike had said but Spike wasn't stupid enough to go after him or his husband Alli! if he wanted Naffir could burn down everything in a five mile radius which made him a pretty safe friend for Buffy to have, she liked her other friends but they were all potential victims, hostages or vampires, she was always their protector and their friend. The Watchers Council taught her that there was evil and good but Naffir taught her that there was more, in the Muslim faith they believed God created Angels, Man and Djinn; Djinn could be good or bad depending on their mood or preference. Naffir was a fire Djinn, when he wasn't wearing dark sunglasses you could see that his pupils were small balls of fire hanging in black eye sockets that were too big for his face and when he opened his mouth you could see the light shining at the back of his throat and smoke came out. To pass as human he could not speak or open his mouth in public and had learned Sign Language when it was first being developed, he himself had always had a sort of sign language of his own for his cohorts to use in public but the national one made life so much easier and eventually he had taken on students and begun teaching it. The first time she went to him for a lesson she had gone to his house where he served her tea on the lawn, while they had drunk tea out of these beautiful glasses with gold leaf on them served from an elaborately decorated teapot on a stand with a tea light burner under it the whole thing had felt more like an informal chat than a lesson in Sign Language, it had been wonderful just to talk to someone about little nothings like the weather and the spices in tea. That one hour had done more for Buffy's confidence and self worth than all the pitying looks she had gotten from her friends and family for weeks.  
   
On the second visit it had turned into more of a lesson but was still enjoyable and on the lawn but on the third visit Naffir had seemed troubled and asked her outright if she was the Slayer when she had said yes he asked her if she really killed all demons even those that meant her no harm. Confused Buffy had explained as best she could that that was her calling and she had never met one who wasn't trying to kill her and/or others. Then Naffir had smiled and said she needed to get out more and she had seen the smoke coming from his mouth for the first time. At first she had been afraid and leapt back from him and looked around the beautiful garden with its magnificent water feature wildly for a weapon but Naffir remained seated and poured her more tea and insisted she hear him out.  
   
That lead to the first afternoon she spent at the tearooms which were hidden in the garbage dump. Buffy had been hesitant when she heard the rooms were owned by a Lady vampire, literally a Lady she had been turned just as the Bolshevists were coming for her kind and murdering little girls in the name of freedom and equality and after years of travelling the world and seeing change, death and destruction she had come to realise that destruction wasn't all it was cracked up to be and change definitely wasn't. So she had created this little pocket dimension; small on the outside but big on the inside, a tranquil haven for all those who wished for a simpler time and a slower change of pace, the pictures on the wall were mostly black and white and Buffy had seen the Lady in a few with the Tzar himself. She was over ninety when she was turned and her tastes hadn't changed much in a century as could be seen by the thousands of lace doilies which decorated every surface, the rules of visiting her tearooms were very simple; no fighting, no breaking and always be polite.  
   
Strangely enough Buffy liked the little Russian tearooms with the odd menagerie of different demons, or Djinn as Naffir called them, more than she liked Highschool with all of her human classmates, she felt strangely at home there. She knew Giles would have had a wonderful time documenting and studying all the demons but she also knew instinctively that she could probably never bring him there, he was too indoctrinated into the Council party line and wouldn't understand. In early August she brought her mom to meet Naffir and they all sat down and talked about Buffy being the Slayer and her Mom had come to accept, if not fully understand, what she was.  
   
#"Secrets are poison especially between those who love."# Naffir had told her and she knew he was right as he convinced her that this honesty, that opening her heart to her mother would help her in the future to be a better fighter and a better daughter.


	2. Halloween and other things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Basically my attempt to rush through season 2; it's the Spuffy we're all here for so I'm not going to rehash all the episodes where he might be mentioned. Like it for what it is and please review :)

Buffy didn't hear the jokes that were made at school about Halloween, she didn't hear people asking her if she was going as Helen Keller or if she was going to do the water scene for them all but she saw Willow and Xander getting angry and she saw the sniggering and more than once she had to pull Xander away from a guy who probably deserved his punches. Sometimes she thought it must be the negative influence of the Hellmouth; surely people weren't so cruel in other schools.

Usually she went to school and then went to Naffir and Alli's house where she would have a snack and then train with Naffir for a few hours then go home, do her homework, change and go out for patrol. However since Spike's threat Giles had insisted she stay on at school, finish her homework in the library and then train with him for an hour. A lot of his lessons were purposefully designed for Slayers and they differed greatly from the intensive cardio she did with Naffir who could almost match her in speed and agility but they were still useful. He was impressed by how good she was at hitting her target even when she was blindfolded, something no ordinary deaf person could do. Giles had assumed she would be helpless in the dark because of her condition but as she hit him with another well thrown harmless tennis ball he realized that her senses were not limited to just the world she could see and hear. Buffy was not surprised at that as Naffir had been doing a lot of exercises with her over the summer that helped her hone this sixth sense but she didn't tell Giles that. It was brilliant to have Giles motivated to be her Watcher again, she had missed the older man's mentoring.

The week of Halloween Willow and Xander wanted to go to this new costume shop that had just opened up and was having a sale but between all of her classes and studies she hadn't had the time to go so she arranged to meet up with Willow so they could get ready together and spend some time together. She had decided to use the opportunity to introduce Willow to Naffir and Alli. She was especially excited because there was this old rule about Vampires and demons not causing any harm on Halloween, Naffir said it was because the veil between the living and the dead was so thin and strange things tended to happen if supernatural beings went out killing. Buffy took the bag with all of her supplies in it and walked to Willow's house not for the first time wishing that Sunnydale had proper bike lanes so she could save some time by cycling. Willow came out of her house wearing her usual baggy yet childish clothes, Buffy had always been dressing up to date with the latest fashions or trying to dress older but Willow always seemed to dress younger and often looked like her style was thirty years out of date so Buffy hoped she could use Halloween as an excuse for a little make over on her shy friend.

They got to Alli and Naffir's house with a few hours to spare to get ready, Alli knew all about Buffy's plan and was looking forward to doing Willow's make up, he didn't wear it himself but he occasionally wore a bit of eyeliner and when ever there was a gay pride event he and Naffir had a lot of fun dressing for the part. Pictures and souvenirs of their trips to various cities for various gay pride rallies decorated the house showing what a happy life the two men had built together in an intolerant world. 

Buffy had discussed how best to introduce the fact that Naffir was a djinn with the two men for a week before the actual day and they all decided that it would be best to ease her into it. Like Xander and even Buffy Willow had been taught that all demons were evil and actively seeking the harm and destruction of mankind but Naffir had been around since before the Bronze Age and he said no demon did more inhumane deeds or massacred more innocent people than humans themselves and it's hard to argue the history of human crimes with someone who was there when Babylon fell and The Achaemenid Empire rose, he had described a lot of other Empires he had watched rise and fall but after the first two thousand years Buffy had asked him politely to stop. She couldn't imagine what it was like to live for so long and watch so much happen and change around her.

When he opened the door Alli welcomed them and immediately began to fuss over Willow, like Buffy he spoke aloud but also signed what he was saying for Buffy's sake and to keep his skills honed. Buffy appreciated, as always, his thoughtfulness. 

While Alli and Willow went through the outfits Buffy had brought Naffir and Buffy silently signed to each other in the corner.

#You still wish to go as a Persian Princess?# he signed to her.

#Yeah I have these harem pants and a sequined crop top and I thought a few scarves could complete the look.#

#I'm sure you'll look beautiful,# Buffy smiled, #But I don't think any outfit you wear would be complete without some sort of weaponry.# He moved to a box in the center of the wall and took out two curved swords, Buffy could instantly tell that these were very precious to Naffir and very old. #During the First Persian Empire I had the honour of serving Emperor Cyrus as one of his personal guards, we were called The Immortals but we were not just chosen for our supernatural abilities, there were also humans among us. Cyrus himself presented these swords to me on the anniversary of my tenth year serving him. He liked the number ten; all of his infantry and cavalry were divided into groups of ten and to see his army, 130,000 strong marching in boxes of ten, a hundred, a thousand made a djinn feel very small. He was human yet he achieved more in his short lifetime, established an empire that has lasted at least in part to this day and his military tactics were used and copied by all the great conquerors of the world and I should know I met a few of them. Being part of the elite haivarabum or division as you would call it was one of the proudest achievements of my life. I will not give you these swords, to gift a blade to another person means severing the friendship but I will loan them to you, they are just like the practice blades I have been teaching you with and although you have not trained for the seven years necessary to become a master with them like I did you have earned the right to wear them, at least for as long as you would wish to.# There was a look of uncertainty in Naffir's eyes as he offered her the only memorabilia he had left of that wonderful time but Buffy's face lit up as she took them.

#Thank you Naffir, I'll take good care of them until it's time to give them back.# they went on to talk about more light hearted things as she got ready in her blue yellow and purple outfit, the sequins were a good substitute for the metal discs that members of the guard traditionally wore and though she didn't look a lot like one of the Immortals she did look very impressive considering the whole outfit cost less than $10 to put together. Her mom hadn't actually said it but she knew money was getting a little tight so she was glad to save where ever she could. She giggled happily at something Naffir said and signed back to him as he helped her to put on the unfamiliar sword belt.

Willow looked away from Alli and frowned at the two silent talkers, she hadn't realized just how much sign language Buffy had learnt, she knew Buffy signed a lot as she was talking but she hadn't said a word in the last ten minutes. Yyet the two of them were laughing all the time like they were having a whole conversation. 

"She's a very fast learner isn't she?" Naffir asked as he tested another eye shadow against Willow's skin.

"I hadn't realized how much she had learnt." Willow responded.

"Oh she's one of Naffir's best students, well she had to be since her deafness is so absolute but surely you have seen her signing before?"

"Yeah but I didn't realize she could sign without talking I've been learning too in my spare time but Buffy is really good at lip reading so I don't practice it with her much."

"Good at lip reading? Have you actually asked her if she is good at lip reading or if she's just pretending? It can be very awkward for deaf people in social situations if they have to rely fully on lip reading you know." He said with a frown as he applied more blush. "She probably doesn't want to draw attention to her condition by constantly asking people to repeat themselves or talk slower or to remember to face her when they speak but that doesn't mean she's 'good' at it yet. Besides even people who have been studying lip reading for years and are really good at it have trouble with it. It's not an exact science by any means." Willow remained silent for the rest of the makeover as she watched Buffy and Naffir with a contemplative look and thought about what Alli had said. She had tried to learn sign language at the start but then Buffy had spent most of the summer in LA and come back with all these stories about her lip reading classes and then normal school had started and Willow had left her book of sign language gather more and more dust on her bedside locker. She had just assumed Buffy had been a bit down because of her affliction and that she just needed time and the support of her friends but seeing her laugh with Naffir she realized it was the first time she had seen Buffy laugh since all that business with the Master. Had Willow failed her friend? Had she let the language barrier get in the way? 'I will be a better friend' she vowed to herself, 'I will start learning the language again and I'll make signs as I talk just like Buffy does,' Willow vowed to herself that she would make her best friend laugh again.

It was just after Buffy showed off her purple blue and gold costume to everyone that Willow realized there was something different about Naffir as he took off his thick black sunglasses to reveal the glowing orbs where his eyes should be. Willow jumped from her seat and backed away from him while Buffy calmly explained what was happening. Demons had always been the enem, the bogey men but somehow they could also be the friends. Willow gritted her teeth and pretended it was all ok as she remembered the vow she had made only an hour earlier to be a better friend and dropped the subject; leaving all of the questions she had for another day when they weren't due at the Highschool. Technically only Willow and Xander were on trick-'r-treating duty since Principal Snyder had said "Buffy couldn't look after children since she was deaf." Buffy had spent the rest of the week pretending that statement hadn't cut her to her core, it might be true, she had no way of knowing as she had never taken care of several children at once; deaf or otherwise but it still stung That he had thought that and been cruel enough to say it aloud to people. Xander had made light of it and praised her for getting out of the 'voluntary' program but it didn't make her feel any better.

Things were going fine with the trick-'r-treaters until they started turning into their costumes and then all hell broke loose as she had Private Harris and Ghost Willow to help her find the temporarily not so little kids that had run away from them. Thankfully Naffir and Alli answered her texts and came to help Naffir's tracking abilities led them to a warehouse where she found the children that were now various types of demons who she hoped she wouldn't have to hurt and could somehow restrain until the spell was broken but in the mean time Spike had gotten himself a little entourage and they clearly needed to handle him first.

#"Ooh look it's I dream of genie."# He said and signed with a sly grin. She just took out her swords that she twirled in a practiced way then tucked them back into her belt before signing.  
   
#"Sorry to disappoint but I'm all Buffy and no enchantment." # She signed back, Spike looked thrown for a moment and then smiled wider than before.  
   
#"Even better" # he said finally then he sprang at her and fought her with a piece of piping as all of his demons/kids in costumes watched, she shed her coat early on to give her more freedom of movement so she was only waring her harem pants (which were terrific for fighting in and a sequined crop top which was not) as she did a particulaly spectacular flip off a crate and against the wall to land on a higher crate in fighting stance to face her opponent she also became very grateful that she had had the presence of mind to wear a sports bra; some things she just didn't want little kiddies to see even in their be-costumed states.  
   
Spike did an equally impressive jump where he even bounced off a wall to land on a crate opposite her's and the two were about to face off again when she felt the familiar tingles on her spine that meant Angel was around. The whole gang came in then, Willow as a ghost, Xander as a soldier and Cordelia in a cat costume; the only other one unaffected by the spell like Buffy. Buffy froze with her swords raised ready for his attack but watched the new comers as they started speaking.  
   
A lot of things changed for Buffy the Vampire Slayer after that Halloween. Things were said, she caught most of them but mostly only got the gist of it As she kept one eye on Spike and watched Naffir translate what was said for her. He had never liked Angel and had warned her away from him a few times so later she had Cordelia fill her in with her usual bluntness. Deaf girl. That's what Angel kept calling her as he shouted at Spike; someone to be pitied, someone William the Bloody, mass murderer and Slayer of Slayers should feel bad about killing because she had a disability. He didn't see her as the Slayer and he didn't see her as a person he saw her as a disability, she had known it for a while but Angel's words that night really confirmed it for her. Spike gave her this thoughtful smirk before leaving through one of the sky lights. What really made her see red was that Spike had seen her as an adversary, as worthy of being his third Slayer kill, in a weird way his easier to kill her made her feel like he was recognizing her as an accomplished Slayer. He recognized her as still being worthy of the title despite her condition, she had read up on the other Slayers he had killed and she felt strangely honoured to be found equal to the likes of Xin and Nikki.

As she climbed down from the crates she moved toward Naffir; her face pale. Angel touched her shoulder and tried to make her turn to face him but she shrugged him off. He tried again but Alli; head and shoulders shorter than Angel, human Alli stood between them.

"Don't put your hands on her. If she doesn't want to talk to you then she doesn't have to."

"I was jus trying to see if she was ok." 

"You have no right to lay your hands on a woman without her permission and don't even think of arguing that you do." His voice was cold and his eyes burned with his own inner fire.

"I wasn't laying my hands on her I was trying to talk to her. To see if she's ok."

"Of course she isn't ok, but as you're the only person her who hurt her you should know that.'' All further talk was halted as Buffy took Alli's hand and giving him a grateful smile led him and her other friends from the warehouse where Angel stood stunned b what Alli had said. 

'What had he meant I was 'the only one to hurt her?' He wondered, what could the little man have meant? 

Naffir pulled Buffy aside after they delivered the tired children to the school and took off his glasses to look her in the eyes before he pulled her close in a hug.

#It has been more millenia than I can count since I have seen a true master of the swords, you should have had to train for years to be a master at them a few months over the summer should not have been enough. Give me a penny.#

#Why?# She signed back.

#I cannot gift them to you or it will sever our friendship but they are yours. You are as worthy of wearing them as any of The Immortals were. I am honoured to pass them to you.# Buffy's eyes filled with tears at this gesture, her own Father had never really been proud of her, or since the divorce even been around, but sometimes when Naffir looked at her the way he was doing now she felt the hole in her heart that she didn't even know, or usually acknowledge, was there healing a little.

   
*********  
   
One night on patrol Buffy sensed something behind her; not vampire, not human and not any demon she knew of. She rounded a corner and quickly jumped up onto the roof of a building to watch from above as the dark figure moved. Something in her heart twisted and she suddenly knew who this was; sister.  
   
"Are you a slayer?" She called from above and the other girl turned to stare then as if by magic a knife appeared in her hand that she threw a knife at her which Buffy caught. She remembered Merrick doing the same once to prove she was the Slayer and threw it back at the other girl who likewise caught it one handed. The girl seemed to see this as a challenge instead of an act of recognition as it had been meant though and Buffy had to think and act fast to avoid being hurt or killed by her. She ran further on the rooftops and jumped to the ground to run to Giles's house where the confusion was cleared up by a few cross Atlantic phone calls. Buffy had died for a few minutes; Kendra was called. Buffy was delighted by the news that there was another Chosen One but Kendra was a little hesitant; it was a lot to take in, Buffy supposed.  
   
They fought Spike and his minions and tried to save Angel, he wasn't Buffy's favourite person at the moment and she mostly avoided his company if she could but the demon grape vine was full of talk about his kidnapping and everyone seemed to expect her to save him so she did. She thought she would be sick when she saw the organ fall on Spike and Drusilla. He was so in love with her and so devoted, it made Buffy sad to think she would never have anyone look at her with that sort of loving adoration.  
   
The next day all the Scoobies were in the library and Kendra must have been saying something as they were all looking at her but when Buffy came in Kendra turned around and they stopped whatever conversation they had been having. She never knew, was never told by any of them that Kendra had been talking about how Buffy wasn't really a Slayer anymore because of her disability, that Buffy was a liability in a fight and it was a good thing that Kendra had been called to replace her, Buffy also never found out that none of her friends denied what Kendra was saying or defended Buffy's right to be the Slayer. Kendra returned to Jamaica, via a first class ticket this time on Buffy's insistence and Giles's dime, it was just plain dangerous to travel via the cargo hold and she also had luggage; lots and lots of clothes and shoes that Buffy had bought her on a shopping spree the two had had. Buffy thought Kendra had gone home having made a new friend. Kendra went back thinking about what a shallow girl Buffy was and a little envious that Buffy still lived with her mother who was so nice and understanding about the whole Slayer thing, she had always been taught having family or friends was a liability.

Firoid demons resemble gargoyles in colour and shape and often stay perfectly still to complete the illusion, on patrol Buffy is often grateful to the little scavengers who eat most of her demon kills and save her on clean up. They are also good for giving her the gossip from the demon grapevine in exchange for the spicy jerky she gives them when she's on patrol. Spike was alive though in a wheel chair for now.  
   
She should have frowned but she smiled, she should have told Giles but she remained silent.  
   
*****  
   
Buffy's birthday party was a fun affair, they had it in the morning at the tearooms with Naffir, her Mom and a few other friendly demons she had met like Listers, Krasevics and Anomovics, it wasn't a big elaborate party but there was cake and Lady Vy led the singing with a Russian rendition of Happy Birthday which even though Buffy couldn't hear it she enjoyed.  
   
Later she had another small party at night with a few friends but spotted vampires with a box so naturally she postponed the party to chase them and take their box. They spent hours at the library researching until they found out about the Judge and Angel then announced that he would take the box abroad and leave it somewhere where they wouldn't find it. They all agreed and wished him luck and Buffy stayed the night at Willow's, Willow had pretended to phone her parents with the round robin excuse but Buffy quickly realized Willow's parents hadn't been home in months as their academia kept them away, she had just made the phone call to feel like they did Because everyone else had been making phone calls home to their parents. When she went home the next day she shared her suspicions with her mom and they agreed that the lonely girl should come over to their house for sleep overs and proper cooked dinners more often.  
 


End file.
